SHSU Policing Institute Receives $750,000 in Grants

Members of the Regional Community Policing
Institute Governing Board recently met in the Criminal
Justice Center at Sam Houston State University. Those
attending the meeting included board members, staff from
the Texas Regional Community Policing Institute, and staff
from the Office of Community Oriented Policing Services
in Washington, D.C.

The Texas Regional Community Policing Institute at Sam Houston
State University has been awarded two grants totaling $750,000
from the United States Department of Justice.

The institute at the university is one of 27 regional community
policing institutes funded by the Justice Department's Office
of Community Oriented Policing Services (COPS) for the upcoming
year. One of the grants, for $500,000, is for continuing operations.

"The funds are earmarked for ensuring integrity in policing,
and they will allow the institute to continue its general
operations in providing training and technical assistance
on a variety of community policing and other timely topics
to law enforcement agencies in Texas and the communities they
serve," said Phillip Lyons, director of the institute.

The office also announced a separate award of $250,000 to
the institute to establish a multi-state program to provide
training to law enforcement agencies in recognition, identification,
collection, storage and provision of testimony about DNA evidence.

"This award will capitalize on the strengths of several
SHSU College of Criminal Justice faculty including Dr. Steven
Cuvelier, an expert in web-based instruction; Dr. Richard
Li, a forensic scientist; and Dr. Sparks Veasey, a forensic
pathologist who is also an attorney," said Lyons.

"The training efforts supported by this award will further
justice through the promotion of greater reliance on more
reliable forms of evidence," said Lyons, "thus reducing
the likelihood of erroneous criminal convictions and civil
judgments."

Grants were awarded to three other regional community policing
institutes across the country including New York, Tennessee
and Illinois. In addition to training law enforcement officers
in Texas, the institute at Sam Houston State will provide
DNA training to law enforcement officers in the western United
States, including New Mexico, Arizona, Oklahoma, California,
Nevada, Utah, Colorado, Washington, Idaho, Montana, Wyoming,
Oregon, Hawaii and Alaska.

"We, by far, have been tasked with training the most
states and the greatest population of law enforcement officers,"
said Robert Werling, project coordinator with the Texas institute.
"However, the COPS office has also expressed confidence
that we can provide competent, professional training to law
enforcement officers in these states."

In both programs, the institute will focus, as they have in
the past, on ways of engaging communities that historically
have been excluded from community policing efforts and will
target small and medium sized communities that lack their
own training infrastructure.

"We have always directed our efforts at those agencies
and communities that need us most," he said.
"Larger agencies typically have the resources they need
to keep abreast of developments in the field. Smaller agencies
usually lack those resources, but their constituents, of course,
are no less deserving," he explained. "The COPS
office, through its support of the regional community policing
institute network, allows us to help ensure that everyone
has access to leading edge training."

The Texas Regional Community Policing Institute was established
in 1997 under the supervision of its founding director, Randy
Garner, associate dean and professor of criminal justice at
Sam Houston State University, who continues to serve as a
grant administrator, along with Lyons. Since its inception
the institute has provided more than 200 training sessions
totaling in excess of 76,000 contact hours to approximately
10,000 participants.